Bestselling author, TED speaker, producer and thought leader Nova Reid has often been described as a force to be reckoned with – and for good reason. Her debut book, The Good Ally, published in 2021, was an urgent call to arms to become better allies against racism “for everyone who wants to be part of change, but feels helpless and doesn’t know how to move forward”.

Reid’s book has had a very real-world impact, from a criminal justice group in Wales releasing an anti-racism action plan embedded with practices from The Good Ally to NHS mental health practitioners using Reid’s frameworks to empower leaders to be anti-racist. 

Ahead of Black History Month 2022, with its theme of Time for Change: Action Not Words, she sat down with Stylist to talk about what’s next for sustainable allyship and how to keep the momentum of anti-racism work going, even in times of crisis.

When Nova Reid first published The Good Ally, it was a time of conversation and universal recognition. “The summer of 2020 and the murder of George Floyd galvanised people across the globe in a way that has never been done, so as a result of all of these initiatives, the spotlight was put on understanding the real impact of systemic racism,” she explains. Sadly, the powerful tide of the “black square summer” wasn’t sustained by everyone.

As she tells Stylist: “What you saw is the momentum just dropped and the apathy started to set in for people who thought that it might just be a quick fix. People who wanted to just get the guilt off their plate and donate to charities once and be done. But the reason these organisations are in existence is because this stuff is ongoing, because people are suffering daily.”

Now, a year after her book was first published, Reid has noticed the same growing sense of fatigue when it comes to anti-racism work.

“People are understandably burnt out by everything that is going on, but Black people and people of colour have to navigate racism all of the time, even when there’s a climate crisis or economic hardship,” she says. “It’s always present for us. So, for those people wanting to be allies, you’ve got to learn how to sustain yourself.”

According to Reid, that involves never becoming complacent. “It’s never thinking ‘I know all this,’ it’s never crossing over to that arrogance,” she shares. “You want people to be more confident and empowered to tackle racism and talk about race, but not to go into that state of thinking ‘those people over there are the problem and not me’.”

Reid says she recognises that it’s a “fine line”, but that self-awareness is key. 

“We can all do little things consistently that have real impact,” she stresses. “Stay curious, and avoid the debate of who’s right, who’s wrong and who gets to maintain innocence. Lead with humility. There are always going to be things you don’t know or things to learn and do better by. But apologise, take responsibility and make change. That’s the key thing for me. It’s taking responsibility when we do get things wrong and knowing what you can do better next time.”

However, when we fall into the trap of not holding ourselves, and others around us, accountable, that’s when we can slip back into apathetic habits.

“We can read the books, but if we don’t take on the actions and the practises in the book, what’s the point? It’s like going to the gym and taking a photo. You can go to the gym to actively engage in and maintain wellbeing and mental health, or we can just go there and take a photo and post it on social media. One of those things is inconsequential and the other one is meaningful and intentional.”

“You have to make anti-racism an intentional practice because we’re so used to not centring Blackness. Racism has been so normalised in society so we have to be intentional with unlearning that.”

In a new foreword and chapter for the paperback edition of The Good Ally (published on 13 October), Reid says she wants to help people to understand that love has to be at the root of any activism.

“How can we as a community come together when we are exposed to so much human suffering, when we’re demonstrating the opposite of love and total lovelessness with one another?” she asks. “Racism is built on the opposite of love and being anti-racist, so how can we intentionally practise both love and anti-racism? So I wanted to write a love letter to the power of that undoing.”

The Good Ally will be published in paperback by HQ, Harper Collins on 13 October 2022, £9.99. Available in hardback, eBook and audio.

Images: Ashton Jean-Pierre/Sebastian Gebache